‘Ben Wallace Admits Defence Funding Shortfall’, Forces News.

Professor Michael Clarke, Associate Director of the Strategy and Security Institute at the University of Exeter, told the BFBS Radio Sitrep podcast about his concerns over how the military retains staff.

“Some of them just leave before they qualify as pilots – because they’re fed up of being told it’ll be ‘another six months’… before they can move from their basic training to getting inside a decent cockpit,” he said.

Professor Clarke also told the podcast that “retaining people after they’ve been expensively trained” is proving difficult across the forces.

“If they leave after six or seven years, instead of 12 or 13 years, that matters,” he said.